Parking in parking lots and garages at public events, airports, stadiums, commuter lots, office buildings or other large parking areas can be problematic and time-consuming because it can be difficult to identify where available parking spaces are located, particularly in lots that are partially filled or almost filled to capacity.
In the past, certain parking lots manually counted the open spaces periodically to update a lot display board or sign that can indicate “full” or “spaces available.” Other systems have counted the number of cars entering and leaving to provide an estimate of spaces available. This count data is used to update aggregate estimates of spaces available on the lot display board. The display boards have been placed at various positions about the parking lot, such as at each parking level in a multi-tier garage or at different access roads about the parking lot.
Unfortunately, often parking lots can be identified as “full” even when spaces are available because they may not offer “real-time” status that can identify where open spaces are located. Further, reservations for parking spaces have been done by dedicating a particular space for a patron or dedicating a block of reserved spaces (typically with restricted access) to patrons having special parking privileges. Occasional patrons or general admission patrons wanting to park for special events are typically advised to arrive early to be sure to obtain a parking place and/or cruise the parking lot to hope to identify an available space.